A gathering place for people fighting FATCA, FBAR and US citizenship-based taxation

We Are Not Tax Cheats

Here is an article We Are Not Tax Cheats from the Financial Post by Lynne Swanson (aka Blaze). (The editor added Dual and American to the headline, but everything else seems to be exactly as I wrote it)

This article says:

If China, Russia, Mexico, Iran or Eritrea were demanding Canadian banks and other financial institutions submit private financial information on Canadian citizens and residents to those countries, there would be outrage.

If Canadian banks were spending millions of dollars preparing to develop systems to report information on Canadian citizens and residents to those countries, there would be outrage.

If the Canadian government were “actively seeking a solution that both countries will find agreeable,” there would be outrage.

If Canadian media were calling Canadian citizens and residents born in those countries “tax cheats,” and advising them to “come clean,” there would be outrage.

Yet, up to one million Canadians of American origin have lived that nightmare for two years with no resolution.

It also says:

The government refuses to tell us if it will sign away our rights.

And:

We need Canada’s Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to insist that Canadian banks follow Canadian laws. We need Minister Flaherty to reassure Canadian citizens and residents that Canadian laws will not be changed for a foreign nation.

Most importantly, we need our elected officials to tell the United States that Canadian laws are made in Ottawa, not in Washington. We must not allow the United States to FATCA Canada.

We deserve no less than Canadians born in China, Russia, Mexico, Iran, Eritrea or elsewhere.

@White Kat, what FATCA and FBAR reporting really are doing is a criminal investigation. An investigation on innocent people with no proof of any wrong doing or any reason to launch such investigating. At the very least we should have the right to not be investigated with no evidence of any wrong doing.

This exactly the same as if you were able to be searched while walking down the street just because some officer doesn’t like your looks. To me part of the question here is legal. How legal is FBAR in Canada? They are saying everyone is to report on themselves so they can see if you are a criminal or not and if you do not report on yourself and everyone related to you then you are fined. It’s outrageous from any nation calling itself a “democracy” or even a “constitutional republic” if you want to mince words.

I was referring to a class action lawsuit against the Canadian government, not US. It is the Canadian government who is putting its Canadian citizens, and residents under harms way, by refusing to do its duty to defend us against an extra-territorial law that will and already has caused us harm.

One of the things I find disturbing, and perhaps grounds for at least one class action law suit, is that by giving IRS access to ‘US person’ accounts, they are putting us into harms way, with no justification for doing so.

For example, those of us who have lived most of our lives in Canada, as normal Canadians, have set ourselves up for horrendously expensive annual tax reporting – never mind the US tax liability – by investing in TFSA’s and RESPs (considered foreign trusts by IRS) and Canadian mutual funds (considered passive foreign investment companies by IRS). No ‘US person’ in their right mind would ever invest in these things had they a clue they were US taxpayers. They would renounce FIRST, but cannot now without jumping through expensive, complicated hoops. The Canadian government never cautioned Canadians with US indicia that these investment products could be lethal.

And even if our government manages to carve out an exception for registered products, they are still handing over personal financial account details of Canadians who will become target for further IRS scrutiny – thus RESPs and TFSAs etc, will eventually be subject to expensive reporting, taxation, and penalization whether reported on directly through FATCA regulations or by the wearied, hunted-down ‘US person’ herself.

If the Canadian government signs a FATCA IGA it is literally putting responsible, saving Canadians into harms way, while there was no wrong doing on their part.